WASHINGTON — During the final days of 2013, House Speaker John Boehner was so frustrated that he
reached a boiling point.

Privately, he complained to other Republican lawmakers about the independent conservative
organizations that lambasted a tentative budget compromise between Democrats and Republicans.
Reporters pressed Boehner for his reaction and finally the West Chester Republican — always on
message, always on point — cracked.

“You mean the groups that came out and opposed it before they ever saw it?” he asked, referring
to Freedom Works, Heritage Action and the Club for Economic Growth. The ones, Boehner told
reporters, who were “using our members” and “using the American people for their own goals.”

It was a rare public gripe from Boehner, who has treaded carefully in trying to govern a
fractured caucus increasingly subjected to scorecards and voting alerts from groups only too happy
to point out a Republican straying from the strictly conservative line.

“My point was simply that tactics used by some of these groups have actually made it harder to
help produce conservative policy outcomes, and I think that’s pretty obvious,” Boehner said.

His criticism also highlighted a growing schism between mainstream Republicans and the
archconservatives allied with tea party organizations across the country. That schism has been the
source of much of the gridlock in Washington.

On one end are Chamber of Commerce Republicans who say that the conservative organizations have
little interest in governing and severely damaged the GOP brand with last fall’s partial shutdown
of the federal government.

On the other end are groups affiliated with the tea party who say mainstream Republicans are “
squishes” too quick to cede to Democratic demands and unwilling to oppose higher federal
spending.

The tea party-affiliated groups “ask for money, they send them scorecards, and they portray a
rationale that’s not intellectually honest,” said Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Genoa Township. “They aren’t
about trying to impose conservative doctrine. They’re about making money.”

One Republican who spoke on condition of anonymity said Boehner’s attack was “about time. There
is no reasoning with these people. You are going to have to stand up to them. They’re too clueless
to understand that at some point you have to work with Democrats.”

By contrast, conservative organizations and their tea party allies were infuriated by Boehner’s
comments.

“I thought they were stupid,” said Tom Zawistowski of the Portage County Tea Party.

Zawistowski said that Boehner and congressional Republicans are simply unwilling to oppose
President Barack Obama, particularly on forcing the president to accept major revisions to his 2010
health-care law or killing the law by not financing it.

He describes mainstream Republicans as being too closely tied to business interests and not
enough to conservative causes. He calls Boehner “the ticket window at the race track.”

“You pay money to John Boehner and he delivers,” he said. “They’d rather have a Democrat than a
Republican they don’t own.”

Dan Holler, a spokesman for Heritage Action for America, said, “There’s a sense among our
activists that, ‘Oh, guess what, people in Washington don’t appreciate conservatives.’ That’s not a
good sentiment to have for the Republican Party heading into a midterm-election year when they need
conservative members to turn up to the polls.”

The spat has put Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on new terrain.
Before last year, their conservative credentials were never in doubt. Now, they find themselves
attacked by the right. McConnell faces a tea party challenge in Kentucky; Boehner has at least four
potential primary challengers, though most believe it’s unrealistic that any pose a real
threat.

The difference comes down to this: While Boehner and McConnell are by most definitions strong
conservatives, they are pragmatic enough to realize that Democrats control the Senate and the White
House. With government divided, it is politically impossible for one party to impose its will on
the other.

“For the tea party and Libertarian wing, it’s ‘If we don’t get a perfect deal ... it’s a bad
deal, it’s a sellout,’ ” said Stu Rothenberg of the Rothenberg Political Report, a nonpartisan
publication that tracks congressional races.

That mindset was shown in 2010 and 2012, when the Club for Growth and Freedom Works backed
archconservatives in key Senate GOP primaries in Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, Nevada and Delaware;
all were too conservative to win the general election. Those five defeats cost Republicans control
of the Senate and a chance to revise Obamacare.

“If somebody wants to blame Obamacare on somebody, blame it on the Club for Growth and Freedom
Works, who supported the people who couldn’t win in Senate races,” said former Republican
congressman David Hobson of Springfield.

Former Rep. Zack Space, D-Dover, said much the same, pointing out that Boehner is trying to
retain the support of the crucial independent voters who helped Republicans seize control of the
House in 2010.

“If the Republican Party loses support of those swing voters, that is going to be catastrophic
for the long term,” Space said.

Although Zawistowski said, “We’re either going to drive the John Boehners out of the Republican
Party, or they’re going to get some religion and wise up,” other analysts think the speaker emerged
with greater credibility among his House GOP colleagues after the government shutdown.

They point out that Boehner privately warned conservatives that closing the government would
cripple Republicans nationally. When they insisted on provoking a shutdown by trying to stop
federal funding for the health-care law, Boehner did his best to help conservatives prevail. Since
then, conservatives have been more willing to follow Boehner’s advice.

“It always helps someone when you have clearly been proven correct,” said David Winston, a
Republican pollster in Washington who has worked with Boehner. “In this case, he clearly was proven
correct.”

Rothenberg, however, pointed out that Boehner and the tea party are not that far apart on
policy. “I don’t think his outburst there was an indication that he’s throwing them all overboard
and he’s suddenly going to be Nancy Pelosi’s favorite House Republican,” Rothenberg said. “He wants
to keep the party together and wants to keep the focus on the president. He does not want the focus
to be on Republican divisions.”